Best Shot Poems
Cupid tapped my sailor on the shoulder,
“That one…” he pointed at me.
He aimed at me, sent the sailor’s seabag too -
we shoot to the top of Everest
with all its dangers.
We tumble and climb, tumble and climb
until at last we are forever in each other’s grasp.
My sailor proposed too fast with a golden ring.
I accepted after he begged for two weeks.
Mind over matter was defeated by head over heels.
I had been shy. If we had met earlier we might have passed by
each other but the playing field was all new. There was adventure
in his soul and longing in my heart to soar to new heights.
The sailor’s seabag was heavy with his past
but he found love and loves (children and grands)
and a God that was bigger than everything.
Tulips delirious dance, twelve with big fat leaves. Tulips alive
with life not death. Roses hold beauty but tulips last.
A sailor’s ring surrounds my finger. Ebon-etched leaves, unique.
Cupid’s bow in shadowbox - a little worn and bent in our heart shape.
2/7/2021
C'mon you ole devil, take your best shot!
You kidding? That's it? Is that all you got?
I know where I'M going; He's saved me a spot
I'll warn you once more in case you forgot
You're messing with one of God's children
I'm CHOSEN, you see and that is my role
You WILL NOT BEAT ME if that is your goal
You may take my body but can't touch my soul
Go back and gnaw in your fiery red hole!
You're messing with one of God's children
I'm STRONG from the trials that I have been through
The fears and the tears from paying what's due
I've felt His wrath and His grace and love too
I've seem much tougher than the likes of you!
You're messing with one of God's children
I'm bald as a baby's naked behind
My chest is a wreck but you won't hear ME whine!
My looks ain't the book on how I'm defined
You might wanna bear this thought in your mind
You're messing with one of God's children
Go bug someone else you think you might scare!
Someday I'll sit back in my rocking chair
With those who I love, laughing at despair
If not, that's okay, I'm in my Lord’s care
You're messing with one of God's children!
*Dedicated to my daughter who is a breast cancer survivor
Hit me
Punch me in the face
Kick me if you must
I need to feel your pain
I need to know
Understand
Where you have been
For with your gentle touch
I have been unaware of the depth of your pain
When you kiss me bite my lip
Let my blood pulsate with understanding
I will scream out the words you are unable to articulate
Let me push into the centre of your need
Until we both find release
Use your nails
Dig into my back
I am strong enough
I will not be broken by your need
Do not be afraid of black ink
Or metaphorical anger
Hit me
Pound upon my chest
Until both our hearts feel
Convulse with pleasured realization
No rules or limitations
Digress to primal urges
Find your earlier self
Until you are lost
Until
Until
You are fully spent
Exhausted
Consolable
For I am not afraid
I am willing
Yes I am able
To take
Your worst
and "your best shot"
If only you are brave enough
To let me absorb your pain!
For Casarah's Triple Threat contest
Written June 23rd.
Note: this poem does not advocate violence, it is a fantasy piece.
A smoking gun reveals inside clouds of truth
behind one mask lies a flaming bullet in the end
These eyes burning trails down the cheeks
salted water from the deepest ocean wounds
Holding grace an undying angel of beauty softy sings
forever and always Heaven dances on wings of love
A Pretty Sound-Hit Me With Your Best Shot
By: Aidan Gilbert
At the park swinging
I heard my phone ringing
Picked it up and heard my Mom crying
The cancer spread, I was told I am dying
It sucks to know you only have two weeks
And to live them in a hospital bedridden too weak
Staring at the ceiling colorless eyed
Hiding the question that burns my jumbled mind
Why did God choose me to die
My parents sitting at my dying side
So quiet I can practically hear my brother two stories down trying not to cry
Taking the elevator with my grandparents to see if his only sister is alright
In my dreams I scream at God
Why did you do this?!
Was there some pretty picture on my way here I missed?!
Well you hit me with your best shot
My remaining cheerfulness you get to watch rot
All of this broke me down
For the first time calm lying still in my hospital gown…
I just wanted to have heard a pretty sound
I was taken by something out of my sight
But I wasn’t truly hurt that I wouldn’t be able to put up a fight
It was me as a fifteen year old girl and being robbed that right.
A true story.
Here I was,
23 or 24...
Classed an "Executive"
NYC Dept Store Chain,
"Executive" label meant
I could work overtime
For one half of my normal salary...
But a fool sees stars
Where he should see crime
Promoted "Furniture Buyer"....
Big Ticket spot....
They seemed out to prove
Smart I was not.
Big Furniture Market,
High Point, N.C.,
Invited out to dinner,
By big shot vendor....
Oh...whoop, whoop, yea!
Of course, my stuffy boss
was there,
In the next chair
At this odd restaurant...
"The Factory" it's name,
After that night,
I was never looked at the same....
Big shot, Big City....
Big Fool....
It wasn't pretty....
The menu did start
Entrees priced more
Than my annual salary
And I'm confused
There's a boiler next to me!
So this Big City Buyer,
In his $99.00 suit
Ordered a shrimp cocktail,
Oh, what a hoot!
Lights flashing....
Like Studio 54
I had no idea
What I was in for!
Got my shrimp cocktail,
Oh, I do love my shrimp!
But the lemon wedge,
Was wrapped up
My mind now a' crimp
In this decorative yellow stuff,
All fit with a bow....
How do I open it, I wondered...
I wanted to know...
But I'm a Big Shot NYC Buyer,
Sure, I've seen it all....
How dare these dumb hicks...
Have such a gall!!
I took my fork,
I took my knike....
I started trying to open
This thing like....
It meant my very life!
I was struggling,
And sweating,
And frustrated and mad
Got some of the weirdest looks
I ever have had...
These Carolina Hicks...
Out to make a fool of me...
Slowly I realized
Everyone looking at me...
My boss's eyes swollen
In shame
How dumb his young buyer
Should be in a cornfield
And call himself "Town Crier"
Eventually I learned....
This stuff was called
"Cheese-cloth"
Ridiculous I thought...
No cheddar or swiss
Like this had I ever bought...
In silence I remained
Through the rest of my meal....
To me the biggest embarrassment
To me the biggest deal....
Big City Hot Shot Buyer...
Dumb as a farm hand.....
Put in a Manhattan restaurant...
Without but a strand....
Of what was, what wasn't
Of how, and of why...
All I wanted to do
Is to crawl under a rock
And die!
(This is true!!!)
Sirens wailing like the world had ended
In the streets an eerie calm that day
The heartbeat of our country'd been suspended
Kennedy's been shot! My God! No way!
Youthful vigor, smile inviting and appealing
Camelot! -- He and Jackie'd ushered in
America, the news had sent a-reeling
Lined our faces, tears instead of grins
Woe! The shock wore off, reality set in
Agonizingly, did we return to form
Drank our morning coffee, tasted thin
Sometimes wished we never had been born
Death, unwelcome, always begs a reason
This death torments our souls these many seasons
Trochaic tetrameter/pentameter
the sun out there
somewhere
somehow
just asking
for a little faith
Published in my 24-page photo/anthology ~DARK CLOUDS~ 2020
AP: 2nd place 2020
blazing overkill
attacking inner depths
savagely i ride
weathering
the storm
galloping
on the crest
of waves
unfurling high winds
battered and torn
russian roulette
revolving
rolling in the chambers
lead heavy
spinning circles
upside down
pulling on feelings
emotions explode
burning fire
in depths
shot through
the heart
death
to a lovers emotion
love lives
in you died
A parting shot
Baristas bang to level the grounds
Constant caffeinated sounds
Murmured speak of 'where to next'?
Lonely figures sit and text
Gluten-free on plates piled high
Condensing people passing by
Foreign tongues that click and slur
Counterpoint a song from Blur
Buy 'to go' to cut the cost
By patronage the past has lost
Dusty corners, crumbs they've missed
Pierced lip and tattooed wrist
How strange our habits, then and now
That beg the questions when? and how?
Suspended nylons now replaced
By skin-tight leggings trimmed and laced
Time has changed the way we think
Of what we eat and what we drink
Like poetry that used to rhyme
Now lost in Jabberwocky slime.
Quite a few of them tried rather fervently
To reach the light that hangs in bows
Sent sideways perversely
Through shadows of mist-like moonbows.
Or like a sundream cascading down memories
They’d trap in their heart’s chest-like the irony of the lion
Loving the lecherous acts of temporary reveries,
While believing and denying the truth of their carrion.
Like the lambs of our lives, the ancients walked with their lips
From the caves to the clouds they sung their pain
Turning self to others and rocks to ships
They gave us a sweet emptiness that had no name.
They shot beams of shades of truth and fire cries
And sung the leaves at night their stars and knelt grass
With bugs that served us plain through bark and breeze
Tries hard to not see the discrepancy between the moment one passes
And the moment one has to pass.
She exemplifies stardust upon my eyes
As the sky brightens by its passing
Shooting across my tender thoughts
In between the heart of gold and love
She states she saw something standing
Right where the star landed downward
It was me in my only brightened color
Brought upon by the light of the star
I was washed in the reflection of the water
Where shining brightly was the powerful
Light from above, and she shows it
Gracefully, my life enlightened
She brings me joy again, upon the star
That gracefully shot by me
And left its mark
Upon my
Soul
Russell Sivey
Where I want to be
there I shall always stay –
I call the shot, baby.
dreamt to relieve myself
of fearful thoughts, patriotic
plots. dressed to kill in Washington
skirt, no pants of a farmer
wielding a British brown bess
blessed with happiness before
the frightening knock at the door
exploded out of shock
towards the door...towards the door
while family holds their revolutionary breaths
the bouquet
of children unaware
of dangerous situation
a shot in the dark
a shot heard round the world
that never stops
7/16/2020
My words are a saxophone,
my phrases a drum
My stanzas a keyboard,
my rhyming a gun
The Muse is my bullet,
the readers a shield
The darkness my target
—its bullseye revealed
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)